before I start this poem

you must know

there are some things I've been thinking about:

fingers sliding across keyboards

further now, telling the truth

some runoff of the human condition

I cannot, will not tell a lie

your identity jam is beautiful

but before I start this poem

you'll know

that what you are to me is wrapped in word parts

affixes and mouth sounds

and I's and g's and k's and u's and b's and r's

memories and future memories on a reel

phone, text, book, car

text, book, phone, car

book, phone, text, car

but before I start this poem

Performance Script

my life it ain’t never been the same since
that day I saw they stringed

my daddy I saw he hanging from the tree by
he thumbs

ah when certain kinda things
happen sometimes you just ah

you just let the (w)hole widen
they tell you what makes sense to them
my mom would say
“That’s my little Jewish princess.”
and she would say
“You are a Goldsmith” “Yes, you are a Goldsmith”

What?

That’s my gran-gran-daddy/big paw/my father’s
father’s father. Every day they say he tell that story at
sunrise/he tell it like he praying/like he not really in
the room/like somebody else speaking it for him. they
say each morning when he tell it/it’s as if you just
happen to walk into a conversation he having cept
ain’t nobody there but him.

this is home. But where is home? Capital H- home.
Chicago?
Germany?
Denmark?

Israel?

The place that earthed you. The place that earthed me.
Zion.
This (dis)placed earth.
it’s a sore/a
wound/this ground/the place i grew up in.

that’s uncle daddy/he my father's father. I think he
done heard big paw's story once too many times/is
now a little touched by it
or something.

i am the cry that won't come out i am the pain stuck i
am the me that never was sorry
i am the me that never was sorry
white
Jewish
queer
woman
I was born too late in my family to exist.
scapegoat
existing now in a (w)hole
before you, buying Danish clogs
forced impostor alone
circumscribing outer edges
of the flat generational lie
through Belarus and Poland
eyes never falling on free terrain
no pleasure of dirt on a barefoot
somehow surviving our mother's land
wound up like a
splintered top
in sweet Denmark
to shake in a basement
rocking chair, starched calico dress
breakable as a Danish plate
and you weren't Jewish

under a black halo of curls
remembering day and night
handed down in a deep set eye
not a story
a thin undereye of blueblack veins

or a scarf for the cold nights
never revealing the bronze chain
dangling a delicate chai
around your neck
and you weren't Jewish

now I am for the
moments i choked away for the lost touches diminished
faded like yellow against the sun.
i was born too early to be allowed to exist i was
drowned the day i was born of heartache and loss
i am

assimilation is unfortunate
I contain the shudder, urban cramp
the smoke pole
a peer’s book

farewell French sparrow
me time is always here
when you need it

condensed packet sounds
like a receipt
motion distracting
the borrowed identity ink

inky smudge finger/smudge
on my hi five-r
too late to avoid this pen type
from the burning lip beans

it’s not pleasant
somebody diarrheaed here
pounding iron to Zion
sheetrock planks
cold and burnt
my oxygen bag

you seldom know
tested it for me, disparaged
I guess
you should remember twenty four
years and grasp, it
that okay?


this my available conversation
and stop opening the fucking door
she asked “Poetry or fiction?”
I point: stage left
she suggested returning two-fold
revisit the classics
check page three
review the neglected submission
relish the error.

inspired by and for sarah

there is the fact

"we miss you"

we/i you
i don't know
i couldn't speaking
walking
talking
/knowing
not closing
opening mouths
lips,books
machines bones and sometimes i hate the world

cunt
ripped out
heart
fuck me/with a
pencil

Sarah Chance

ENG 101

Hi

I am angered.
out poured on a broad base
bold on a clear glass base

crab alight white expended
less than a minute clocked
adjacent to that spoke

I a mangled
a managed, I.

guy in my class that i hate

bluth
hairy half
stubble half
full
greasy top under
hat
shunt your flaccid penis
for posterity

keep talking B.O.
and cirgarettes
keep talking

the last is only the loneliest fruit

xuxa rodriguez

Chapter 1 - Connection is not completion in the language ecosystem. Bitchez.

Here is another wall of my office.

I just finished the first chapter of my thesis. This hasn't been an easy process. Just ask the people I share a hall with. They walk past and glance in, usually just to see me sitting/laying on the floor, trying to organize peices of paper in an order that will eventually be completely re-ordered. Several have compared me to John Nash, Russell Crowe's character from A Beautiful Mind. I don't argue with them. The chapter draft is due on Wednesday. I'm done 4 days early ;)

Ode to Gina Cooke

Look sales guy
quit talking
go away

no follow-up
no dropping-in
no walk-ins

Did I mention
I am busy at work
working when I'm at work


Now
quit telling me about your dreams
entrepreneur monkey
HP - and what is wrong with it

quit. telling. me. ANYTHING.

cept "goodbye" or
"I'll email you"

Now
get out of my office

Love,
Gina

I work as critic of poetry
it's resistance to being critiqued

being her face stands a positive
legs don't either, hear that
high--
tiger you yearly wine fight
Oh Santa Monica - too quick
happy off the bicycle
high-date me.

This man
rides up to here
all in orange orange
happy, smiling
left no
no not left and smile
and (I wonder if she would date me)
bathroom. Don't make eye contact.
Must be craziest
happy. smiling. coffee tea bicycle muffin music sunshine orange suit

(her maybe) (I'm not desperate, am I?)
must be crazy.

Tickle Dip

tickle dip
though only blue bristle
can though juice


hair and
skin

tight and mauve and voice

Reasons Why

Just because I loves you-
That's de reason why
Ma soul is full of color
Like de wings of a butterfly.

Just because I loves you
Thats de reason why
Ma heart's a fluttering aspen leaf
When you pass by.

-Langston Hughes

God

I am God-
Without one friend,
Alone in my purity
World without end.

Below me young lovers
Tread the sweet ground-
But I am God-
I cannot come down.

Spring!
Life is love!
Love is life only!
Better to be human
Than God-and lonely.

-Langston Hughes

Suicide's Note

The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.

-Langston Hughes

Fascination

Her teeth are as white as the meat of an apple,

Her lips are like dark ripe plums.

I love her.

Her hair is a midnight mass, a dusky aurora.

I love her.

And because her skin is the brown of an oak leaf in autumn, but a softer color,

I want to kiss her.

-Langston Hughes

One Year After

I.

Not once in all our days of poignant love,

Did I a single instant give to thee

My undivided being wholly free.

Not all thy potent passion could remove

The barrier that loomed between to prove

The full supreme surrendering of me.

Oh, I was beaten, helpless utterly

Against the shadow-fact with which I strove.

For when a cruel power forced me to face

The truth which poisoned our illicit wine,

That even I was faithless to my race

Bleeding beneath the iron hand of thine,

Our union seemed a monstrous thing and base!

I was an outcast from thy world and mine.

II.

Adventure-seasoned and storm-buffeted,

I shun all signs of anchorage, because

The zest of life exceeds the bound of laws.

New gales of tropic fury round my head

Break lashing me through hours of soulful dread;

But when the terror thins and, spent, withdraws,

Leaving me wondering awhile, I pause -

But soon again the risky ways I tread!

No rigid road for me, no peace, no rest,

While molten elements run through my blood;

And beauty-burning bodies manifest

Their warm, heart-melting motions to be wooed;

And passion boldly rising in my breast,

Like rivers of the Spring, lets loose its flood.

Claude McKay

To Lindsay

Vachel, the stars are out

dusk has fallen on the Colorado mad

a car crawls slowly across the plain

in the dim light the radio blares its jazz

the heartbroken salesman lights another cigarette

In another city 27 years ago

I see your shadow on the wall

you're sitting in your suspenders on the bed

the shadow hand lifts up a Lysol bottle to your head

you shade falls over on the floor

Allen Ginsburg